INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING
CHEMISTRY Harrison E. Howe, Editor
EDITORIALS AFETY. The record shows that progress in safety is made only through tragedies and sacrifice. We are always locking the barn after the horse is stolen. The only comforting thought is that we do take some steps to prevent further stealing. Those who work in laboratories where there is a constant hazard grow accustomed to the dangers peculiar to such places, just as the taxi driver becomes seemingly indifferent to all threats of tangled traffic. A periodic check of, suitable facilities to meet emergencies threatening life should be made. There should be readily at hand all the effective means for extinguishing fires, for supplying first aid, and counteracting the effect of poisonous substances commonly used in the place. Of what value is a frozen emergency shower, an empty fire extinguisher, leaky hose, or an empty bracket designed to hold a blanket, so useful in smothering fires? It is difficult to remember all the factors involved in creating either a laboratory or a plant hazard, but there is no excuse for not having ready for instant use those appliances and measures known to be efficient, should an accident occur. We have reason to be proud of the safety record made in chemical plants, but the laboratory is in danger of being overlooked in safety programs.
therein were produced from materials other than grain. Under the amendment the term “neutral spirits” includes ethyl alcohol. Straight whisky is all made from grain mash and the neutral spirits mentioned involve only about two million gallons annually used for blending purposes. But this amendment reaches over into the wide field of foods and drugs and if the idea prevails there are a number 01 other products in the still greater industrial markets that may soon be affected. This is not the first time that efforts have been made to restrict by law the use of alcohol for legal beverage purposes to that derived wholly from grain or grain products. Chemists know ethyl alcohol to be a definite chemical compound, regardless of the raw materials from which it may be made, and there is ample evidence that the source of the materials used in the manufacture has no bearing on the purity of the final product. Indeed, there is no purer ethyl alcohol than that now made on a large scale from ethylene, and who can identify the source once pure alcohol is made? But if this type of legislation is to become law, what is to happen to the proposal to broaden the industrial use for other agricultural products? Only last year the United States Department of Agriculture issued a release in which it was proposed to use surplus potatoes for the production of alcohol. The molasses now used in most of the plants is a product of agriculture, whether cane or sugar beets, and there are plans under discussion for adding artichokes to the list as a raw material for alcohol. Wood may soon assume new importance in this connection. Surely such discrimination will not be tolerated, even under the conditions of continual experiment which exist today. One might as well designate that the lead in the type metal to be used in printing the Congressional Record must be only that mined in the state of the senator proposing the resolution. And there are other absurd lengths to which we must go if any logic is to prevail. The whole idea is disgusting.
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DENTITY BY SOURCE. On August 22, 1935, H . R. 9185, an omnibus liquor bill, was passed by the House of Representatives and since has been the subject of hearings before a subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee. Senator Murphy of Iowa, on February 4, stibmitted an amendment which undertakes to define ethyl alcohol for the purposes of the Federal Alcohol Administration Act, the Food and Drugs Act, as amended, and any act of Congress amendatory or in substitution for either of said acts, according to its source. If it is enacted into law, no product could be labeled, advertised, or designated as neutral spirits, whisky, or gin, or any type thereof for nonindustrial use, if the neutral spirits contained
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INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
HE AIMS OF SCIENCE. Karl Compton, in his address as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, stressed among the aims of science the attack on still unconquered diseases, particularly the debilitating and disabling rather than the fatal, research in pure science as the spring board for forward leaps in application of science, the need for more intensified search for new outlets for agricultural products that there may be no need for crop limitations, and improvements in industrial processes. Dr. Compton believes that tariffs, quotas, and other legislative measures amount to little more than coddling, which in the end handicap eficiency. To quote him:
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I believe that a second line of increased activity in applied science will occur in industry-particularly in those industries which have hitherto depended largely on tariff protection, on monopolies, on exploitation of natural resources, on governmental subsidies or simply on momentum of past strength. These supports are temporary and precarious; sooner or later they fall before science, because no amount of artificial protection can permanently maintain an obsolete product, an inferior process, or a moribund organization against competitors which are based on scientifically improved products or methods.
That there has been a decided reliance upon science by the most progressive of our industries is well illustrated by the statement of 0. C. Huffman, president of the Continental Can Company. After discussing the substantial improvements in the plants of the company and in those built during the depression, Mr. Huffman concluded: It is not too much to say that the research and development work done during the depression may eventually appear as the means which led us out of it.
IGHTING A MISTAKE. Perhaps the kindest thing to say is that the dairy lobby and others who were instrumental in securing the passage of the act which imposes three cents a pound tax on coconut oil simply failed to realize several fundamental errors in their course. The placement of this impost on a raw material largely imported from the Philippines was intended to increase our market for our own domestically produced fats and lead to their substitution for the oil from the Philippines in the manufacture of soap and in its use by tanners and the manufacturers of rubber articles. The money to be collected cannot go to the producer of the copra, but under the law must be paid into the Philippine treasury. The tax went into effect in 1934 and there is now before Congress the Guffey-Dockweiler Bill which is intended to remedy a situation now generally unsatisfactory. The imposition of the tax has worked a hardship on soap manufacturers who use coconut oil because of its lauric acid content, which is about 45 per cent. The production of some plants was on too small a scale to
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stand practically a 100 per cent increase in the cost of necessary raw material. Only large operators could manage that, even with the 36 per cent rise in the price of laundry soaps and 15 per cent for all varieties. Less soap was made and with the supply of coconut oil undiminished, the price with tax, while too high for soapmaking, was low enough in the world market to result in an increase in the proportion used for edible purposes. There were 284,000,000 pounds of refined coconut oil used for edible purposes in 1933, the year before the tax went into effect, and 364,000,000 pounds in 1935, the year following its imposition. Thus the dairy industry gained nothing as a result of the tax. The hardship to the producers of copra is unquestioned and so far no money has been paid into the Philippine treasury, for there are injunctions preventing this. There are no domestic fats or oils that compete with coconut and palm kernel oils, because they alone contain lauric acid. As this lauric acid is what is required in the manufacture of zinc laurate, used as an accelerator in the rubber industry, is the compound which retards the yellowing of white kid, and produces the desirable lather in soap, it is obvious that these qualities are not obtainable with other fats and oils. Coconut oil, therefore, instead of competing with tallow and other inedible fats, actually increases their market, for they, too, are also desirable in various kinds of manufacture. The Guffey-Dockweiler Bill proposes to retain the three cents per pound tax on that part of the importation used for edible purposes, to remove the tax where inedible uses are involved, and to denature that proportion, about 70 per cent of the imports, so that no dif€iculties can arise through illegal diversion. The bill refers to coconut oil produced in the Philippine Islands or in possessions of the United States, and statistics show that our industries can absorb practically the entire exportable surplus of this oil and copra produced in the Philippines. There is a reciprocal side to the problem, for in 1926 the Philippines took $6,000,000 worth of our chemical products and even in the depression year of 1934 about $3,785,000 worth. By taking under favorable circumstances the products of the Philippines, the latter will be in hetter position to purchase from us, so that there is a beneficial economy involved, as well as righting an error evidently based on the assumption that oils and fats can be substituted one for another regardless of their chemical composition. As a matter of fact they are no more subject to interchange for special uses than are solvents, metals, or other products of unique characteristics.
